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Maple Leafs might be better off without a season: Cox

The NHL lockout, if it erases the season, might actually help save the Leafs from themselves.

A season-long NHL lockout would at least allow Leafs defence prospect Morgan Rielly time to develop with the Moose Jaw Warriors rather than in the glare of the Toronto spotlight. (Katie Brickman / Moose Jaw Times-Herald)

That was the word used Thursday by NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly to describe the non-talks with the players union. Daly also said “we are done with making proposals and we don’t have any new ideas.”

Hmmm. Promising.

Nothing going on then except for lots of idle chatter. One of the more intriguing — and totally unconfirmed — bits of speculation making the rounds these days is that there are only two clubs particularly anxious to play, Vancouver and Montreal.

With the Habs, the suggestion has been that chairman Geoff Molson is a dove, which might be a euphemism for a clear-thinking NHL owner/executive who keenly understands his franchise has little to gain in this destructive clash between the very wealthy and rather wealthy.

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The Aquilinis in Vancouver, meanwhile, would be forgiven if they were to think a little selfishly. These days, windows for NHL championships open and close very quickly. With key players into their thirties and former No. 1 goalie Roberto Luongo on the trade block, it’s possible Vancouver’s window for a Cup is already closing.

And once it’s gone, it’s gone.

So what about the Maple Leafs?

Obviously, it would be the worst way for Bell and Rogers to begin their stewardship of English Canada’s most famous franchise. Then again, these companies are so big they might barely notice.

But what about on the ice?

You can construct a case — not that Brian Burke would buy it — that missing the season wouldn’t be a bad thing at all for the Toronto hockey club.

For example, it would save the team from a chronic and self-destructive habit that has long bedevilled the team, and that’s rushing young players to the NHL without adequate training.

Doing the right thing with young players is more difficult in Toronto than in any other NHL city. Only minor-leaguers who play for the Marlies are the subject of discussion on CBC’s Coach’s Corner on Saturday nights. Heck, the possibility that Leaf farmhand Leo Komarov might return to the KHL became a national story this week.

If a top draft pick needs two or three years of minor pro experience in the Carolina or Detroit or New Jersey system, he gets it. No big deal. In Toronto, Nazem Kadri’s presence on the Marlies roster is treated as though he is a persecuted political prisoner.

So the fact that Kadri, Jake Gardiner, Ben Scrivens, Joe Colborne, Jesse Blacker and others are continuing to serve their apprenticeships with the Marlies and Tyler Biggs learns in Oshawa isn’t a bad thing at all.

If the NHL lockout lasts the year, it won’t hurt any of those players. They’ll only be the better for it.

Similarly, you know that if the lockout ends tomorrow, Moose Jaw defenceman Morgan Rielly will be on his way to Toronto for an abbreviated training camp and there will be, as there always is, intense pressure to keep him in the NHL.

Which would be exactly the wrong thing to do. Again.

So, no NHL, no chance to recall Rielly, who can then continue playing a prime-time role with the Warriors and quite possibly skate for Canada at the world junior hockey championships.

The lockout might save the Leafs from themselves in other words.

In terms of the NHL roster, other GMs have already suggested the Leafs are as well positioned as any franchise in terms of the general youth and affordability of their personnel. They may not have the talent of Boston or L.A., but they have loads of kids and no anchor-like, decade-long contractual commitments.

If this season were to be erased, the contracts to Tim Connolly, Joffrey Lupul, Matthew Lombardi, Clarke MacArthur, Tyler Bozak and David Steckel would expire, making them unrestricted free agents.

Only Lupul would be a major loss and he could be re-signed. Lopping off the $8.25 million owed Connolly and Lombardi would be a plus, particularly if the salary cap, as most anticipate, drops to $60 million or less.

A thornier problem would be that both Phil Kessel and Dion Phaneuf would move into the final years of their contracts before they gained UFA status, which would require very tough calls to be made on both.

But in the grand scheme of things you could certainly make argument the Leafs are one of the clubs that, at least purely in terms of hockey, could benefit by having the season lost. It’s not like a Cup is on the way next spring, after all.

Sure, that’s a cynical way to look at things. But coldly practical. And practicality is in short supply these days in the NHL.

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